Acid Westerns

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
OK, I love the aesthetic of westerns and I love it when something lovingly subverts a genre without ruining it. Also, I love weird films so basically the genre that is called acid western should be right up my street - silent blackclad gunmen, hallucinations, vivid colours in the deserts, the hopeful american frontier dream gone wrong etc all good fun.
As I understand it the first acid western is generally considered to be The Shooting directed by Monte Hellman and staring Warren Oates and Jack Nicholson (did I mention I like this film?). Not as weird or hallucinatory as all that but the mysterious plot leaving so many unexplained questions combined with the fact that you don't really know who anyone is or what they want leaves viewing this as a thoroughly odd experience.
After that the genre goes totally nuts with El Topo and Django Kill I suppose and more recently there was Blueberry or whatever it was called. Maybe the Thai film Tears of The Black Tiger fits into this category, it's certainly got the colours and it subverts the genre by setting it in the wild east and being a musical and generally being ridiculous.
What else should I look out for? Has anyone seen this The Good The Bad and The Weird thing or Miike's recent take on a Django film - I'm kinda intrigued by both of these. Also there is a French one called A Girl Is A Gun or something which I'd like to see.
Any more tips.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Dead Man - the film that inspired the term "Acid Western"
The Proposition - written by Nick Cave who also did the soundtrack
Jeremiah Johnson
High Plains Drifter - a lot of classic Eastwood stuff is pretty tripped out actually but especially this one
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Dead Man - the film that inspired the term "Acid Western"
Click to expand...
Oh aye, I read about this one actually. Any good?

"The Proposition - written by Nick Cave who also did the soundtrack"
Click to expand...
Is this an acid western? I guess it's dark which is supposed to be one characteristic but other than that I can't see the link. Either way it was very disappointing I thought.

Never seen High Plains Drifter.

I reckon that Blood Meridian may fit into this category if/when it comes out.
 
empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
Westworld
westworldxi1.jpg

westworldkp3.jpg
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Oh yeah, that's a really cool film. I suppose it fits the bill. Such a chilling image, the inexorable robot on their trail.
 
empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
the porno industry did their take on it in the 1970s---SexWorld
the trajectory was the same, iirc. more humor and... fluids.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
does el topo count?
Click to expand...
Yeah definitely, that's why I mentioned it in the first post. It's definitely "acid" and it's western enough in my books. Why aren't there more films like this?
 
C

carlos

manos de piedra
haven't seen Zachariah (1971) in a long time- but it might fit the bill:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068011/

Gunfights and electric guitars in the Old West? You bet! Zachariah gets a mail order gun, practices a little, and kills a man in the local saloon. He and his friend Matthew set out to become gunfighters, joining with the Crackers, a rock band who are also (pitifully inept) stage robbers. Having quickly outgrown that gang, Zachariah and Matthew set out to become bigtime gunslingers. Before long, they part company and a rivalry grows between them

also, not exactly "acid"- but Dirty Little Billy is an odd one about Billy The Kid

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068487/

and i would nominate The Missouri Breaks, mostly for Brando's unhinged performance

also, a lot of big-budget westerns in the late 60s and early 70s were a little strange- like Little Big Man for example. maybe not acid-damaged but still weird.
 
empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
[ok, not acid, but maybe herbal westerns:
the three amigos
blazing saddles
butch cassidy & the sundance kid]
 
nochexxx

nochexxx

harco pronting
IdleRich said:
Yeah definitely, that's why I mentioned it in the first post. It's definitely "acid" and it's western enough in my books. Why aren't there more films like this?
Click to expand...


sorry I was speed reading posts under the nose of my manager again.

the other day she caught me reading k-punks nuum piece . :eek:
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
IdleRich said:
Oh aye, I read about this one actually. Any good?
Click to expand...

hell yeah it is, a total mindf**k of movie unlike some of Jarmusch's stuff which aims for that & misses (though I'm generally a fan of his work). Johnny Depp at his weirdest, Gary Farmer, gay cannibal bounty hunters. if ever there was a film that took all the tradiitonal signposts of the "West" & flipped them inside out this is it.

IdleRich said:
Is this an acid western? I guess it's dark which is supposed to be one characteristic but other than that I can't see the link. Either way it was very disappointing I thought.
Click to expand...

well not in the traditional sense of an "acid western" though that's kinda why I mentioned it. more revisionist than acid I guess but I seem to remember some psychedelic elements. maybe it's just the soundtrack. and yeah, I dunno, I can't really defend it, I liked it but can see how you might it find to be awful.


IdleRich said:
Never seen High Plains Drifter.
Click to expand...

well like I said a lot of his classic Westerns are kind of (and unintentionally I suspect) pyschedelic. HPD specifically b/c of certain aspects of the film which I don't want to give away if you haven't seen it.

IdleRich said:
I reckon that Blood Meridian may fit into this category if/when it comes out.
Click to expand...

omg is someone actually making a film version? I can see being either absolutely amazing or terrible, perhaps both at once. I'm thinking of like Apocalypse Now, Dune (Lynch's version), Man of La Mancha stuff here. I can't imagine a major studio financing it though perhaps there's a chance now w/both The Road & No Country For Old Men achieving mainstream success.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"hell yeah it is, a total mindf**k of movie unlike some of Jarmusch's stuff which aims for that & misses (though I'm generally a fan of his work). Johnny Depp at his weirdest, Gary Farmer, gay cannibal bounty hunters. if ever there was a film that took all the tradiitonal signposts of the "West" & flipped them inside out this is it."
Click to expand...
That sounds great.

well like I said a lot of his classic Westerns are kind of (and unintentionally I suspect) pyschedelic. HPD specifically b/c of certain aspects of the film which I don't want to give away if you haven't seen it.
Click to expand...
Having said that I like westerns (which I do) there are an awful number of the classics that I haven't seen. Think I came to the genre late.

"omg is someone actually making a film version? I can see being either absolutely amazing or terrible, perhaps both at once. I'm thinking of like Apocalypse Now, Dune (Lynch's version), Man of La Mancha stuff here. I can't imagine a major studio financing it though perhaps there's a chance now w/both The Road & No Country For Old Men achieving mainstream success."
Click to expand...
It's supposedly been in the works for a while now I think. I'm like you though, I think it would be a brave studio that actually dared produce something that was true to the book. I'm waiting with crossed fingers and I agree that NCFOM makes it more possible. This is what it says at the end of the wikipedia article (for the book)

"A film adaptation to be written and directed by Todd Field and produced by Scott Rudin is in the works.[19] Ridley Scott was previously attached to the film before Field took over."
Click to expand...
I didn't know that the director had been changed.
 
M

mister matthew

Active member
Yeah I didn't really like it much either as it goes. Thought it warranted a mention though.

Kinda maybe another one... 'Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia'... contemporary setting (contemporary to 1974 anyway), but very odd and hard not to read in relation to Peckinpah's other 'proper' Westerns.....
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
IdleRich said:
Having said that I like westerns (which I do) there are an awful number of the classics that I haven't seen. Think I came to the genre late.
Click to expand...

yeh me too actually. I've seen way more weird/acid westerns than I have traditional ones. being American tho it's kinda different, obv. Westerns are a pretty big piece of American pop culture like Clint Eastwood for example probably nearly every American over a certain age has seen at least a couple of his spaghetti flicks.

IdleRich said:
I'm waiting with crossed fingers and I agree that NCFOM makes it more possible.
Click to expand...

also The Road which I guess has already been shot & everything & is due for a release later this yr. though I dunno, both The Road & NCFOM have something for people to connect to, The Road despite its grim setting is actually an "uplifting" story about a father & his son, NCFOM has the sheriff, also it deals with a lot of contemporary stuff, drugs & the border & so on. Blood Meridian is just a lot more...ah uncompromising you know? no sympathetic characters, chock full of humanity at its most brutal & callous. also it's so sweeping in scope, Biblical like, and so dense & full of allusions, the way he uses language. I guess the more I think about I can't imagine any film really doing it justice.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
mister matthew said:
Kinda maybe another one... 'Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia'... contemporary setting (contemporary to 1974 anyway), but very odd and hard not to read in relation to Peckinpah's other 'proper' Westerns.....
Click to expand...

though Straw Dogs is kind of well not acid but also not what I would call a "proper" Western.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top